


Pets

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Challenge: Sentinel Thursday, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 00:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6831079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were a lot of pets in Blair's life as he was growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SentinelThursday prompt 'neon'

Pets

by Bluewolf

Growing up, Blair had never had a pet. The peripatetic lifestyle favored by his easily-bored mother ensured that.

Oh, he had lived with pets - briefly - over the years. Aunt Laura - he was never quite sure if she was Naomi's sister or her cousin - had a cat that greeted him surprisingly enthusiastically any time they visited. Several of the men Naomi 'fell in love' with had dogs, and once there had been a litter of not-quite-old-enough-to-leave-their-mother puppies that five-year-old Blair had played with, tumbling around the floor with them as if he had been one of them. But then one by one they had found new owners. It had taken some fast talking from Naomi to make him understand that Luke couldn't keep all of them, they were happy in their new homes, and their mother didn't really mind that they'd gone. Blair hadn't been totally convinced of that last point, because the mother spent a lot of time after the last puppy left cuddling up to Blair, licking his hands the way she had licked the puppies. That was one of the places he had been sorry to leave, because he liked Luke and he liked his doggy-mother, and he was sure that because she had - well - adopted him as one of her litter, she would be unhappy at losing him, too.

But - inevitably - Naomi moved on.

When he was six, they were in Mexico, and the pet was a half-grown pig. Fortunately they left before he discovered that although it was treated as a pet its eventual destination was the local slaughterhouse, a source of income for its owner who would, as soon as possible after disposing of that one, get a new piglet...

A few months later, back in America, his new uncle's 'pet' was a small pony, and he learned to ride.

But in some ways the most fascinating pets that he had encountered - to the point where he spent hours that he would normally have devoted to reading watching them - was a tank of tropical fish.

It was a big tank, and most of the fish in it were fairly small - ones with an adult size of perhaps two or three inches. Though some were solitary, they mostly swam around the tank in small shoals, ducking around the plants that decorated the tank in fascinating synchronization.

There were zebra fish, cardinal tetras, neon tetras, guppies, a pair of swordtails, a Siamese fighting fish in a vivid blue, two kissing gouramis and two angel fish (all four of which would one day grow to be too big for the tank, but Don had a friend with a tank of big fish and when that happened he'd give them to his friend and get himself another two small ones of each species) and a few others that Blair struggled to remember the names of, mostly because he couldn't see anything particularly individual in their colors.

But fascinated though he was with the fish all the time they lived there, he knew that if the day ever dawned that he was in a position to have a pet, it would be a furry one; possibly a cat, more likely a dog.

Because he had a dream one night. It had been so real - he had been watching a big cat and a big dog playing together, and then after a while they curled up together and went to sleep. Naomi and Don had listened to his story, then Naomi had laughed. "You've always had such a good imagination, Sweetie, I'm not surprised it shows in your dreams."

Don had said nothing, but a day or two later Dave Eaglewings, who lived not far from Don's store and bought his supplies there, paused on his way out of the store. "Hello, Blair."

"Hello, sir."

"My good friend Don tells me you had an interesting dream the other night. Tell me about it."

Blair looked at him, puzzled, but told him the dream.

Dave listened, then said quietly, "Blair, I am a shaman of my people. That dream is significant. One of those two is your spirit animal. The other is that of someone you do not yet know, but will come to know well.

"I cannot be sure which of them is yours - "

"My aunt's cat likes me, always spends a lot of time with me when we visit there, but when I was younger there was a litter of pups where we were staying, and I played with them. After they went to new homes, their mother still acted as if I was one of the litter."

"Then, while I could be wrong, I think it possible that your spirit animal is the dog." He turned and walked over to his SUV.

Blair waved as Dave drove off, and thought about it as he went back to the house. He went in, made his way to the fish tank, and as he settled in his usual chair in front of it, only he knew whether his mind was more occupied with cats and dogs than cardinal and neon tetras.

 

 


End file.
